What if Fuchida was right?

Indeed, though post strike assessments were almost universally grossly inflated.

 

Sorry to join the thread so late.

I, too, agree that US damage control was far and away better than the IJN. But I don't think that would have made much of a difference here.

Personally, I think whether the planes were on deck or not is a moot point. Sure, planes in the hanger add more fuel and ordnance (torps) to the hanger fires than if they were on deck. But I don't think that's the deciding factor here.
It's been awhile since I read Shattered Sword and I lent it to a friend, so I can't look stuff up in it right now. But I had the impression after reading the book that most of the damage was not caused by fuel in the planes, but fuel in the CV's aviation fuel storage tanks. In addition, due to the orders to switch from torps to bombs and then from bombs back to torps, there was an awful lot of ordnance still left sitting around in the hangers whether the planes were in the hangers or not. The US bombs with their delayed action fuses would have found the unstowed bombs in the hangers and the CV storage tanks regardless of where the planes were.
To me, that means that having the planes in the hangers helped sink them faster, but given the design of the IJN CV's and the unstowed ordnance in the hangers, I think they were doomed either way. The weaker DC on the part of the IJN was just icing on the cake...
Carl

 

I have been really enjoying this thread, lots of good opinions all around. A good hypothetical always makes for a great conversation. As hypothetical questions go this is well in the range of being probable.

 

Oooh, I missed this. Yorktown wasn't sunk by US forces, she was finished by an IJN Sub, I-168. As far as the damage control, yes, the USN was better, but the Japanese could do a decent job.

Someone brought up the difference in design, this is also key of the IJN. Look at the pounding that Shokaku took at Coral Sea and again at Santa Cruz. At Coral Sea, Shokaku took 3 1000 pounders and survived. At Santa Cruz she took 3-6 bombs (I'm unsure of the bomb weights without looking them up, but likely a mix of 500 and 1000 pounders) and again survived. Also, 5th carrier division (Shokaku and Zuikaku) were the newest fleet carriers in the IJN at the time and had been in commission less then a year. Their DC was likely not any better then what the first and second divisions had at Midway. IJN damage control did a fine job with Shokaku on both occassions. While the USN was definitely better, I think there is a little too much harshness being given the IJN. What the IJN failed to do, was improve and learn lessons, and the USN did an excellent job of learning from its mistakes.

 

Shokaku seems to have had the best D/C in the IJN.

 

Aoba was hit pretty hard and made it home, as was Mogami at Midway. IIRC Chikuma was hit pretty hard at Santa Cruz as well, and several of the IJN birdfarms made it back with sub torpedo hits in them. IJN DC wasn't as gawdawful as is popularly believed.

 

The Japanese submarine I-168 Attacked the USS YorkTown at 15:36 on June 6th. After the torpedo attack no salvage attempt was made. With yankee ingenuity I am sure that they could have saved the ship. Through the night of the 6th and into the morning of the 7th, Yorktown remained stubbornly afloat. At 07:01, the ship turned over onto her port side, rolled upside-down, and sank, stern first, in 3,000 fathoms (5,500 m) of water.

 

There was a DC party under Captain Buckmaster on Yorktown when the I-168 hit her. The DC party could hear the water coming into the ship and could hear the bulkheads failing, but were unable to to do anything to stop it. Had I-168 not intervened, perhaps Yorktown could have been saved. If Buckmaster hadn't abandoned her on the 4th, it's possible they may have saved her.

After I-168 hit her though, it was game over.

 

Having been in the Navy for 28 years, most of which was at sea. I cannot refute Captain Buckmaster's decision to abandon ship. Without power, there was no hope of dewatering the ship. I believe that his genuine fear was that the Yorktown would capsize with a large number of his DC crews below decks.

 

The case of the Ark Royal may have been fresh in his mind. Or perhaps just a clear head.

 

I don't fault Buckmaster either (unlike Admiral King and his former XO Jocko Clark) and I think that given the information he had, he made the proper decision for the lives of his crew.
What would have helped, was if the ship had essential personnel designated that could have stayed on board while non-essential personnel abandoned ship. The idea for that was actually in Buckmaster's report on the loss of the ship. I think he can hardly be faulted for not doing things no other ships were either. As it was, the Yorktown was /the/ elite carrier in the USN at the time, and her performance at Midway shows that. Aside from the epic damage control, her air operations made those of TF 16 look amaturish; especially considering that the revered Marc Mitscher was in command of Hornet and her abysmal performance in the battle.
For example, Yorktown pioneered flushing out the fueling lines with CO2. Yorktown was the only carrier in the USN force that managed a coordinated attack at Midway by using a running rendevous where the slower Devastators launched first, then the SBDs, and finally the short ranged, but faster Wildcats last. No fuel was burned circling the ship waiting for the strike package to assemble, meaning that the effective range of the aircraft was increased.
It's amusing and worth noting how much better the black shoes, with Fletcher's Cruisers, Battle Force staff performed in direct comparison to Halsey's supposedly elite brown shoe Aircraft, Battle Force staff performed, but that's for another day.
No, I don't fault Buckmaster one bit. Losing that crew with their experience would have been a far greater loss then the ship itself. Those guys, and the ones from Wasp, Lexington, and Hornet were the cores around which all those Essex and Independence class ships were built.

 

What I would be curious about, is the extent of the damages that Yorktown received during the Battle of Coral Sea that were not repaired. And how the decision to send Yorktown back into battle contributed to her loss.

 

I would guess that the big things were fixed (i.e. major holes) but cracked pipes might have been bypassed not replaced and the like. Probably less redundancy and more leak paths. Who know how many fittings were stressed and did not fail at Coral Sea but the Midway damages pushed to failure. I would agree Ken, that would be a fascinating study.

 

My understanding is that her watertight integrity was not completely restored. As to how much of a role that played in her loss, I'm not sure. What I do know, is that she had stabilized until I-168 hit her. After I-168 put more torpedoes in her, I don't think it would have made much difference either way. I'll take a look through my book on the Yorktown tonight when I get home from Physical Therapy and see if there any anything about it.

IIRC, the damage that left holes in the side and deck were fixed, the internal damage was not.

 

I took a quick look through "That Gallant Ship, USS Yorktown CV-5" by Robert Cressman, and it does not detail the damage remaining from Coral Sea. It does say that the first torpedo invoked a 6 degree list and that the ship remained under way. Flooding was localized in the vicinity of the forward generator room. The shock from the second hit snuffed out the boilers, caused the rudder to jam, and the ship rolled to 27 degrees of list. That said, taking on that much of a list, that quickly with no power to counter flood or pump with, it's hard to find fault with Buckmaster's choice to abandon ship.
Had the Black gang continued to work, they may have been able to restore power. As it was, at the time of the attack, the DC parties which had returned to Yorktown had reduced the list from 27 degrees to 22 degrees. It seems clear that the USN DC was winning that fight until the I-168 interfered, and perhaps had the department heads and salvage teams not lost the night of the 4th, perhaps they'd have been able to get the Yorktown under way enough that I-168 may not have been able to locate her.

 

Here is a good read. It is the Declassified War Damage Report on the Yorktown folling the Battle of Coral Sea. It is 37 pages, once you blow thru the canned Navyology, there are some interesting items to contemplate. The report can be found at the following hyper-link:
http://wwiiarchives.net/servlet/document/1284/0/0

 

Neat! Thanks!